Traditional story-based entertainment media, such as books, television shows and movies offer a show in a linear fashion which the audience is expected only to passively observe. But the natural use mode for computing devices such as personal computers or smart phones is interactive: I type, I text, I talk, I swipe. Touch sensitive screens have created a world in which computing devices easily and naturally take input from users ranging from two years old to ninety-nine.
This results in a tension between the desire to create and consume good stories, and the user's desire for agency and participation in entertainment on responsive personal computing devices. Combining story with interaction has been an ongoing goal from the earliest days of computer entertainment, from text adventures such as Zork to contemporary AAA games like Call of Duty or Destiny. These have generally given players the ability to change events in the narrative, either by selecting between branching narratives (in a Choose Your Own Adventure model) or by specifying a general story order interspersed with high-agency game play (the “combat punctuated with non-interactive cut scenes” model of the typical video game.)
The individual computing devices having touch sensitive screens can take inputs from viewers ranging from two years old to 99 years old. This offers a very simple and effective way for readers to interact with the content of the story. Therefore a more innovative story telling method to more actively involve a reader or an audience is needed.
Branching techniques have been used to diverge story lines; they invite a reader to participate and to let a reader influence the eventual outcome of the overall story. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,784,069 discloses a method to use divergent story lines in a movie though introducing many logical branches in the movie action and plot, and then which logical branch is selected to be shown next is decided by preferences of the audience. The preferences of the audience are characterized by votes that are collected prior to the showing of the next logical branch. The privileges of voting for particular storyline branches, or rights to influence the direction taken of the storyline are provided for purchase. One shortcoming of this method is that the ability to influence the outcome of the movie is closely related to the purchasing power of the individual reader or audience, which limits this method to be readily adaptable to everybody. Additionally, engagement of the user is only limited to voting power.
The present invention takes a very different approach. The story itself is fixed, but the user is given tremendous agency in the act of assembling it. This allows the story to preserve the best elements of storytelling, but the user's experience of it is based on her individual intelligent guesses throughout. In this sense the present invention feels less like a video game, and more like more casual puzzle games. As in a crossword, each correct guess gives the user more clues to fill in subsequent pieces of the puzzle. As in a jigsaw puzzle, the final picture is determined from the start, but the entertainment activity lies in the user actively assembling it.